


Crashlanding

by friendlieutenant



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
Genre: Author will update tags and rating as updated!, Childhood, F/M, Growing Up
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 19:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20512124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friendlieutenant/pseuds/friendlieutenant
Summary: Riza’s lonely childhood hasn’t prepared her for her new housemate: her father’s new apprentice.





	Crashlanding

**Author's Note:**

> Sort of just testing this out. Haven’t written anything in ages, so here’s to trying!

1897.

Her childhood home on the outskirts of East City was pressed against a wooded glen. Behind the home was something out of a pastoral painting, with tall evergreen grasses and towering oaks and apple trees. 

The apple blossoms in the spring bloomed vibrantly, the pink petals dusting the grounds like blush. Springs were beautiful, and the late summer apples were full and heavy in her small hands.

As an only child, growing up with a recluse for a father whose attention was solely dedicated to his work, these woods provided a semblance of escape.

Beyond the thicket of trees, lay a pond that enticed animals of all shapes and sizes. As a child, she liked running in and chasing geese until they chased her back—which she didn’t like much. Since that point, her outings by the pond had been much more peaceful, and she’d braid her blonde hair while the geese, squirrels, and deer would mind their business, preferably on the other side of the pond.

The shabby outside of her home reflected much of its presence in her life as it did to the stray passerby’s. Little light was let in, with curtains pulled, only adding to her isolation. On the days her father stayed upstairs, she’d open them and bask in the warmth of the sunlight, reading a worn book she had read many times over already.

She wasn’t privy to her father’s collection, so much of what she had access to were those of her mother’s childhood books. Before Riza’s mother fell ill, she stocked them on the small maple bookshelf in her daughter’s room—chapter books telling of adventures that took its heroes and heroines far from their homes. The blonde remembered, even as a toddler, being read to in bed, heavy lids falling down as the warm voice read to her. Even after she could read by herself, she always begged her mother for a chapter before bed. The young woman would smile softly before easing besides her daughter, Riza relaxing at her mother’s side, her arm settling over her lap, seeking for tenderness and comfort from the person in her life who radiated boundless amounts.

The books and faded photographs were the few remnants of her lost presence. When she’d catch herself trapped, reading the same paragraph multiple times, she’d find herself wondering what her life would be like if she was still here. Surely the home wouldn’t have fell to disarray, mirroring her father’s mind. Riza could only fix so much.

The books kept her imagination vivid and her hopes intact. The summer evenings outside of East City were balmy and she’d run off, her long hair trailing behind her as she waved a stick at invisible foes. The apple trees were ripe with fruit, and sometimes she’d take the rotting fallen ones and hurl them at the trunks of other trees to eliminate an enemy, or pull a fresh one from a low-hanging branch for “sustenance” on her journey to the pond. There, she had constructed a home base made from fallen branches of varying trees just meters away from the edge of the water.

Many evenings, she sat close to the reeds sprouting from the ponds depths. Riza’s hands deftly crafted flower crowns of clovers, and she would put it on her head before ripping a dogtail from the reeds. She’d turn back to walk home, flicking her septor back and forth, or sometimes it’d be a conductor’s baton to direct the cricket’s chirping and soft bird calls.

She remembered the sun one night: it was falling lower and lower, as if it were going to crash-land into the mountains in the west.

Years passed, and every once in a while, she’d think of the bright orange light, enflaming the land around her.

**Author's Note:**

> Send suggestions if you’d like!


End file.
